Wire transfers are typically for larger amounts. $2k+ If you aren’t depositing/withdrawing at least $1,000 at a time, it doesn’t make much sense. It would be difficult to trade on something less than $2k USD, unless you have 1:400 leverage or you can use nano lots (100 units of base currency) or smaller. Direct Market access will demand at least 1,000 units (micro lot) minimum order and in some cases 10,000 (mini lot). The leverage will typically be 1:200 leverage or higher with a retail broker who is connected to Prime of Prime or is just bucketing 100% of the flow. If you were to deposit directly with the Prime of Prime broker, 1:100 max leverage is not uncommon. With Micro lot minimum, you need at least 4-5k to hold positions long enough to speculate properly.
But I can say if you really believe in your strategy, the wire fee becomes less important as you will make it back 10x anyway with real trading.
Webmoney and to a lesser degree Neteller are off limits to US residents…although their payment process is pretty seamless and irreversible.
Some brokers like IC Markets Au, Exness, Forex4You, and a few others have ability to accept local deposit (usually via internet banking) based on the location of your bank. Even MB Trading had this in the USA. You make local deposit via electronic means and then when it clears it posts to your bank account. It can be instant or take up to 2 business days depending on the level of sophistication.
Direct Credit/debit card processing is more practical…and a 2-4% processing fee. But the broker has to evaluate chargeback risk, and might make either daily or monthly limits. Skrill is a big pain in the arse, but if you can get it to work without any holds, then that’s wonderful. Paypal is more seemless, but they work with very few fx brokers (I think only Oanda).
I contacted my bank and they said that Monday I can call 15 minutes before I attempt to use my debit card, use it, and then call them back to verify it was me making the payment. They seemed pretty cool on the idea.
I’m just going to be using 0.01 lots with 1:400 leverage at Tallinex. Yeah, it’s not going to let me retire or buy a new car but extra money is extra money. My goal (1-2 years) is that I can get to the point that my wife doesn’t have to work (it would require a profit of $50/day) and she can be a stay at home mom. She makes 1/6 of what I do, I’d rather have her home with the kid(s). So start small at 0.01, build my account, and start trading bigger/more lots. I’m in no rush!
I will be away from the forum and off the grid for 10 days beginning later today (Sunday 8/21).
Several of you guys on this thread are more than capable of handling any questions or problems which might arise over the next 10 days — and I will leave things in your capable hands.
If anything comes up requiring an update to the List, I will attend to that at the end of the month.
In the meantime, trade carefully and make lots of pips.
I’ve been following this thread to help locate a new broker, and regardless of their crap website, FinPro has some aspects I like. However, why aren’t they a trusted broker? I don’t see any bad reviews, have I overlooked something?
FinPro’s CFD feed cost me the deposit; I sent them the logs in MT4 showing that they were at fault and they weren’t having it. The first error was credited back to me, but the second time they completely ignored it. It was a DAX move about an hour after the nonfarm report.
Shameful really, as when they were good, they were really good. I would suspect that they’d not like profitable traders though, but it’s complete hearsay on my part to suggest that.
Thanks for both answers so far. In doing some more research, and trying to understand difference between true and false ECN brokers, found one site which stated that true brokers should have bridge software. Not sure if that only applies to those brokers offering metatrader? Either way, I see some brokers mentioning PrimeXM, whereas Finpro live chat just told me they use a Fix bridge. Anybody understand the difference or what is preferable? Thanks.
So far so good with Tradersway (US Citizen here). I did have to call my debit card company to authorize an international payment but they were cool with it.
I’ll update if/when I try to withdraw funds. But everything has run smoothly so far.
Good to know on TradersWay. I know they’re a trusted broker and it seems that all complaints against them have been resolved in a satisfactory manner, or the claims were frivolous from the onset.
I am going to be funding with LMFX today as my main dealer and will keep TW as a backup. (LMFX has DAX access, which I really want). Margins aren’t the best with LMFX CFDs but it’s enough room to make it worthwhile.
I’ll keep you all posted on the withdrawal process. Their support & response times have been the best I’ve seen in a long time.
edit: failed too many attempts to fund via debit, so i’m sticking with TW.
Many US banks block international transactions on debit cards (that’s a good thing). Just call accounts services and they’ll put a 24 hour lift on the block. With my bank I have to give them the country of origin (typically China in Trader’s Way’s case) and I’m good to go.
FWIW…couple of edits my be needed on post #1 for brokers ForexBrokersInc and Tradersway.
Tradersway minimum deposit on ECN is $10. They’ve been running that as a “Promotion” for several years now.
ForexBrokerInc offers a mini account which has a .001 standard lot (100 units) minimum trade size. Only listed broker I’ve found with that option. They’re minimum deposit, however, is now $100
I wanted to follow up about Profiforex - they have fixed the issues that I was having with withdrawals (half of it was my mistake), and thus they’ll continue to be my primary dealer.
I’d like to continue to support Tradersway.com MT4 as a “Trusted Broker”.
Quick summary of what I’ve been doing. Had to move my server to Miami,
using a dedicated Xeon box from ServerPronto.com. They have “POPs” or
“points of presence” in Holland, I believe, and MetaTrader 4 Terminals running
on the server report a ping time of about 100 milliseconds to Tradersway’s
MT4 ECN servers.
For Order executions, we are doing things very unconventionally… Using Java
over the NJ4X.com API, a “pool” of MT4 terminal.exe processes is managed to
do the Order Entry. We are seeing very consistent Order Entry times in the
800 millisecond range or faster. Not the fastest, but Tradersway continues
to be (IMHO – in my humble opinion) one of the best “bangs for the buck”
around. 1) good pricing, better than Dukascopy often, 2) high leverages
of 500:1 up to sizeable accounts at least in the $10k range, with good consistency
in response.
[EDIT: for latency sensitive operations, contact the broker, and see
whether better terms are available for your particular trading business.]
So, all in all, a very solid partner. Any rumo(u)rs of “pricing glitches” are definitely
NOT true. I am always comparing them to a Dukascopy feed, so very consistent
from a technical perspective. I have posted their spreads min/avg/max previously.
I have such a huge software infrastructure in this project that we are barely now
starting to ramp up the trading effort. The intrastructure we have coded is able
to “scan” and to simultaneously manage positions across the 28 major Currency
Pairs 24x7. IMHO, again, the use of automation is the only way to achieve
a significant “living wage” off trading; and to sleep at night as well
Looks like Forex Brokers Inc is not accepting new live accounts right now. I wanted to switch my account over to them since they allow /CL futures, but not now.
Anyone know of a broker that allows /CL for US citizens? Trying to use that instead of WTI spot.
